The materials are laid out before you: cards, stones,
coins, even the stray leaves in your teacup. You puzzle over the swords,
cups, wands, and circles, or perhaps an unfamiliar alphabet, or even something
as seemingly simple as a series of lines, broken and unbroken. And let's
face it, of all the world's most perplexing mysteries, certain questions
assert themselves at the forefront of our thoughts: Does he/she still
love me? Will I get a promotion? How can I improve my health? Where will
this road take me? They're personal issues, the stuff of daily worries,
the building blocks of our days.

But is this sort of divination really about the future
or is it about now? Divinatory tools are triggers. We begin by
recognizing its symbols, picking out the ones that resonate with us first.
Some tools already comprise a sophisticated and complex language. When
you learn its symbolic alphabet, you can begin to read its message, which
is really a message from you to you. While the same symbols may present
themselves to you or another reader, how you build the sentences from
these esoteric words is yours alone. And by bypassing the language you
use daily to communicate the mundane, it's possible for you to leap from
left brain to right, delving into personal truths that are beyond mere
logic.

Before casting runes or dealing cards, ask yourself what
it is that you are seeking of divination. Determine whether or not you
will only see what you want to see. What will change about your outlook
or your actions if the answer is the opposite? Will you repeat your reading
until you find what you were hoping for? Or are you truly ready to take
what is given and accept the fact that what you hope for may not be what
is best, that the problem you hope to solve likely has its answer within
yourself rather than without, and that no matter what promises you perceive
the cards to have given you, you still have to live with your reality
today. Divination, in other words, is not an escape. It is not an easy
way out. If used mindfully, it will help you to see the mountains
you must climb, not avoid them.

Once you have accepted this, the method you choose for
divination is largely irrelevant. There is no one way that is better than
the rest. Ultimately, you need to go with the form that resonates with
you most. While it may seem like an ambiguous statement, you will
know what form is right for you. Don't belabor the issue. You are not
tied to this deck or this method for the rest of your life. If something
feels right, go with it. At a later point, more likely than not, this
will shift and change, probably many times.

The most popular forms today are probably tarot cards
(in one form or another) and Norse runes. Divination tools, however, are
diverse beyond imagining. You can divine with almost anything. In ancient
times, there were those who found truth by looking at the fresh entrails
of a newly slaughtered beast, so if you want to find answers in the specks
of fat dotting your breakfast sausage, go to it. A few more common methods
include cartomancy, divining with cards; palmistry, analyzing the lines
and contours of the human hand; tasseography, divining in a tea or coffee
cup; phrenology, the analysis of the human head; and bibliomancy, finding
answers by choosing random passages from the bible or another text.

The key to successful divination is to achieve an almost
meditative state before your chosen instrument. For this reason, the practice
of meditation in general is a valuable habit to acquire. Essentially,
you are seeking to achieve a waking dream state in which your mind is
not chattering on in its normal manner, preoccupied with sundry worries,
and begin a journey of free association and storytelling with a willingness
to let your mind go wherever it chooses to take you. No matter how unrelated
an image, idea, or word may seem when it first flits across your thoughts,
do not fight it. Don't get in your own way. Your mind knows where it is
taking you.

If you are an artist, this state of mind is familiar to
you. It is that place you reach when you are not consciously choosing
your colors or where the next stroke of paint will go. You are simply
flowing along with it. Like driving a car, the minute you stop to analyze
what you are doing, the process becomes awkward and ultimately detrimental.